County to Boost Sheriff’s Budget

After two years of deep cuts in the Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles County supervisors intend to add millions of dollars to the beleaguered department during budget hearings next week, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The cash crunch has cost Sheriff Lee Baca about 1,200 deputies, prompted the closure of two jails and led to the early release of thousands of inmates. Baca has repeatedly pleaded with the Board of Supervisors for more funding, only to learn in April that budget officials had recommended against increasing his budget.

But on Tuesday, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who has voted down proposals to increase Baca’s funding, said the sheriff has earned the board’s confidence with a series of cost-cutting measures and deserves more money.

“I certainly want to see if we can help him, because he’s borne more than his fair share of the fiscal pain of this county,” Yaroslavsky said. “We asked him to control spending in his department and he’s done it.”

This year, supervisors may be able to spare some programs from proposed budget cuts, thanks to the county’s blazing real estate market. An unexpected surge in property tax revenue has generated an extra $38 million for the county, some or all of which could be used for the Sheriff’s Department, budget analyst Debbie Lizzari said.

On Monday, supervisors will begin debating the proposed $17.1-billion county budget for 2004-05, typically a chance for lawmakers to make last-ditch appeals to fund favored programs.

Yaroslavsky’s commitment to raising Baca’s budget means an increase is likely, since two other supervisors have consistently tried to boost the sheriff’s resources.

Supervisor Don Knabe said Tuesday that he hoped the board would increase Baca’s budget by at least $35 million.

Yaroslavsky also had a change of heart about Baca’s struggling campaign to gather enough signatures to place a sales tax measure on the November ballot to help fund law enforcement. Noting that the sheriff might fall short, Yaroslavsky asked his colleagues to consider putting the initiative on the ballot by board vote.

“I’m just ecstatic,” Baca said. “It shows that I’m not alone in trying to stop the hemorrhaging of law enforcement funds. The supervisors know that I’ve kind of gotten to rock bottom here.”

Baca said that holding the line on next year’s budget would have forced him to make $34.8 million in cuts, because of rising costs for employee benefits, workers’ compensation and other expenses.

The sheriff’s budget negotiations with the board have been strained since 2001, when Baca overshot his spending plan by $25 million. As the board began to closely monitor Baca’s spending on overtime and workers’ compensation, the county and state plunged into a recession that squeezed county revenues.

During the 2002 and 2003 budget seasons, the five-member board split along partisan lines as Republicans Knabe and Mike Antonovich sought to protect the $1.7-billion Sheriff’s Department. But Democrats Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke wanted the sheriff to rein in spending.

Over two years, Baca said, his department lost $166.8 million. The force shrank from 9,400 to 8,200 deputies as hundreds retired or quit, leaving the county jails and unincorporated areas sorely understaffed.

Baca said Tuesday that homicide rates in the unincorporated county climbed 12% in the last year. Five inmates, meanwhile, have been killed at downtown jails since October. The spate of jailhouse killings -- including one involving a witness who was allegedly slain by the man he testified against -- seems to have particularly troubled supervisors.

“We are really concerned about the jails,” Burke said. “If we had more money, I believe that we need to address some of these custody issues.”

Yaroslavsky’s motion on the sales tax measure will not be heard until June 29.

It remains uncertain whether he can win enough support to get it onto the ballot, which requires four votes.

Antonovich opposes a tax increase, spokesman Tony Bell said, while Molina, Burke and Knabe said they were not yet sold on the idea.

“I’m keeping an open mind,” Knabe said. “I just want to make sure it’s not a Band-Aid approach” to funding law enforcement.

If the measure reaches the ballot, it would need a two-thirds vote to pass.

The proposed half-cent sales tax would generate about $167 million a year each for the Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and a group of 45 local cities that field their own police forces.

Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla said that if the countywide effort fails, the city may ask voters to approve a similar measure.

“Try as we might, we simply don’t have the general funds to sustain the expansion of the Police Department,” he said. “This is a way to do it without turning our budget upside-down.”